Archive for category IEM

Security teams can be overwhelmed by a sea of vulnerabilities–without the contextual data to help them focus their efforts on the weaknesses that are most likely to be exploited. Cyberthreats need to be stopped before they cause significant financial and reputational damages to an organization. You need a security system that can detect an attack, prioritise risks and respond within minutes to shut down an attack or vulnerability that could compromise your endpoints and data.

IBM BigFix (Endpoint Manager) has released a new Software Usage Analysis (SUA) module. This release includes a number of new capabilities, specifically SQL support. BigFix Inventory (or SUA) also provides IBM sub-capacity measurement capability. IBM has provided a number of installation and administration guides here. In the following article, I’ll step you through the key elements to setup SUA 9.2: Prerequisites

I’d created a new Windows 2008 R2 server to run SUA 9.2. My virtual machine had at least 8GB of memory and 2 vCPU

On the SUA server I had installed Microsoft SQL 2012 and updates

I had installed an IEM Agent and it was reporting back to the IEM server successfully.

From the SUA install screen you’ll want to choose a server which will run SUA. For small environments, SUA could run on the same server as IEM. However as you grow beyond several thousand endpoints, you’ll want to dedicate a separate server for SUA 9.2. Select that server and click Deploy Installer.

SUA 9.2 will then show you the following screen as it downloads the SUA 9.2 software and then mirrors it to that server. In my lab environment this took about 10 minutes. You can check the progress of the download by looking at the running Actions too:

On the SUA 9.2 server (my server was called SFTSGSUA9 – as it’s on Softlayer) I ran the installer setup-server-windows-x86_64.bat (as an Administrator).

During the SUA 9.2 installation, select the default including accepting the license agreement. Change the default installation path if required:

I select the default https port 9081 in my environment (you could choose another port if required)

I selected System Account and finally reviewed the settings before clicking Install

When SUA was completed I was shown the following screen:

Click on Done and a web browser is then launched to complete the SUA 9.2 configuration. You might need to click the certificate warning in your web browser. I entered the following information below to configure SUA.

After the import was completed (which did take a few hours in my lab), the SUA 9.2 application was then launched:

Back in the IEM console I could click Finish and configure it with the URL of my IEM9TSUA2 server:

Now SUA 9.2 is up and running, we’ll now setup the endpoints for SUA scanning.

Setup your Endpoints for SUA scanning

From the IEM console, select System Lifecycle. Then select Software Use Analysis, select Setup – Activate Analysis. You should see seven Analysis as shown in the example below. Activate each of these.

Next select Setup – Deploy Scanner to Endpoints and select Install Scanner, select Take Action. Select Target and select Dynamic target by property and select All Computers, if you want the scanner applied to every computer with an IEM Agent installed. Otherwise you might create a manual group (called SUA 9 clients) and select it instead. Click OK to run the Action. The scanner will then be deployed to the endpoint.

Select Setup – Schedule Scans on Endpoints. Select Initiate Software Scan. Select Target and select Dynamic target by property and select All Computers. Select the Execution tab.By default the scanning process will run every 7 days as shown below. You can change this value if you like. Select OK when complete.

Finally, select Setup – Schedule Uploads on Endpoints. Select the Upload Software Scan Results fixlet. Click OK to run the Action. Select Targetand selectDynamic target by propertyand selectAll Computers. Select the Execution tab. You’ll see below the Fixlet will run anytime new scan results are available and retry this 3 times if there is an error. Select OK when complete.

Note: As mentioned above, it’s probably a good idea to do each of the three items above on a group basis, so that as you deploy additional endpoints they’ll automatically be setup for SUA processing. Software Catalog Update You’ll want to use the latest software catalog from IBM, which we see has been automatically detected within the console. You’ll need to perform a similar task roughly every month as IBM releases new SUA catalogs. The update process is documented within the Fixlet, so check there on what you need to do, especially if you customise the catalog.

Click Upload. Then select Import Now within the SUA console and browse to the file (D:\Program Files\ibm\SUA\sua_catalog) and select the ZIP file.

Click Upload

Note: There is a Fixlet 1002 – Upgrade to the newest Software Usage Analysis 9.x catalog that can be run. This will automatically download the latest catalog to the SUA 9.2 server. The above task of applying this catalog via the SUA console is still required (thank’s David Kosenko for this information).

That’s it! SUA is now up and running and you can easily see what software is installed and being utilised in your company. If you have any problems, please post your query to the new Bigfix forum. Are you benefiting from IBM Endpoint Manager SUA? If so we’d love to hear from you. Darryl

IBM BigFix can not only provide software distribution but also Operating System Deployment (or OSD). OSD includes the ability to upgrade operating systems (such as Windows XP to Windows 10) but also perform bare metal installations. I’ve recorded two edited video’s of OSD in action for an upgrade and bare-metal installation.

OSD is a feature of IEM’s Lifecycle Management service and a lot of detailed documentation is available here. My colleagues have now produced an excellent step-by-step guide of the setup and use of OSD.

Topics include:

Setup of OSD

Deploying the Windows 7 Image to a Windows XP system

Bare Metal Imaging

Quick Reference Guides

This guide can be downloaded from IBM developerWorks from here. If you have any questions on OSD, you can post them to the IEM forum.

Today IBM announced the aquisition closure of Fiberlink Communications. Fiberlink have developed an amazingly simple to use Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) service. MaaS360 is one of the few MDM products, where you can literally use their MDM product in minutes. A customer can register their details at www.maas360.com for a 30 day trial, and take it for a test drive within minutes. No waiting for sales contacts to contact you first, no migration to other services if you like to use the product after the trial.

I’ve found MaaS360 extremely easy to use. Which is feedback I’ve also heard from clients evaluating other MDM solutions. The MDM in minutes video provides a great overview:

The team at Fiberlink also provide PC and Mac management, which is based on IBM Endpoint Manager (BigFix) technology. So I look forward sharing with you how IBM Endpoint Manager technology will integrate with MaaS360 in the future. I’ll also post my experiences and insights into MaaS360 on this blog too.

IBM BigFix is popular with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for it’s ability to manage hundreds of thousands of endpoints via a single multi-tennant architecture. BigFix provides MSP’s the flexibility for either centralised or delegated administration models.

Overall ArchitectureBigfix is typically installed in a centralised architecture as show below. A single Bigfix server is installed at the MSP to manage several clients from one platform. The BigFix server may be installed with Distributed Server Architecture (DSA) for larger environments. Some MSP’s prefer to leverage virtualisation technologies for disaster recovery such as VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM).

BigFix can manage thousands of separate customer networks (each with thousands of endpoints), without requiring a VPN connection to each client. This is achieved via BigFix relays. A relay is essentially any endpoint but performing some additional responsibilities. BigFix can also manage roaming endpoints which may have left those clients and are working at other remote locations (home, hotels etc).

Top Level Relays (MSP Relays)To manage these endpoints, the MSP will need to separate the BigFix server from the public internet via one or more relays. These relays can be designated relay1, relay2, relay3 etc. as extra capacity is required. The suggested guideline is approximately one of these MSP’s will support 1000 child relays, which you can think of is approximately 1000 MSP managed customers.

Including another relay for redundancy is good practice. So for most MSP’s with two top level relays, this could support around 2000 child relays (or managed customers). For the purposes of this.. example, I have called this top level relay relay1.msp.com.

Client RelaysAt each customer office that will be managed by the MSP, it’s recommended to install a relay. If you don’t, each endpoint will communicate back directly to the top level relays. So there is additional bandwidth requirements. Each endpoint will most likely need to have command polling enabled. So each endpoint ‘phones home’ on a regular basis.

If you deploy a relay, this can be an existing server already in the DMZ (running a range of Windows, Linux or Unix operating systems). The BigFix agent is installed which communicates back to the top level relay called relay1.msp.com. The server relay1.internal.org is promoted as a relay using Fixlet ID 1642 Install IBM Endpoint Manager Relay (Version 9.0.787.0). Check of course for later versions.

Network and DNS Requirements
Ensure you have TCP ports 52311 open at both the MSP and client firewalls. You can check this by performing the following telnet commands:

telnet relay1.msp.com 52311
telnet relaycust1.msp.com 52311

You can also also use a web browser and browsing to the relay’s address and append :52311/relaydiagnostics as shown below:

The MSP should designate the DNS name of the top level relays for client registration purposes (see below). The MSP doesn’t need to define DNS entries for the client relays (such as the name relaycust1.msp.com), although you might simple do this to assist with future network diagnosis.

Client RegistrationEndpoints at each of the remote offices need to register back to the MSP’s BigFix server. This is not possible via direct communication. It’s achieved by configuring the remote client to register via a nearby relay. In our example above, this is to relay1.internal.org as detailed in this article. The client then registers all the way back to the MSP’s BigFix server via the relay servers.

Client IdentificationMost MSP’s allocate each client a unique Client Identification (CID) as outlined in this wiki article. They do this so all the endpoints can be easily classified and grouped together. Select Computers, Tools – Manage Properties and create the following cid property:

The cid value can be defined at endpoint registration time via a clientsettings.cfg setting. This number can be allocated from the BigFix console, by selecting the server, clicking the right mouse button, then selecting Edit Computer Settings… Then select Add, and enter a setting name of cid and the appropriate number you’ve designated. ie. 0001. Once you’ve clicked ok, it can take a few minutes for this new value to be applied to the endpoint and the results sent back to the BigFix console.

You can define separate administrator accounts to only manage those clients endpoints. To do this, create a local account or LDAP role. Then as shown below, only assign computers that match the appropriate cid value. When the user logs back into the BigFix console, they will only be able to administer computers with the cid of 0001.

Custom SitesAs outlined in this article, circumstances may arise whereby the MSP is required to manage and/or deploy custom content for a specific customer. To avoid all customers BigFix Clients downloading and evaluating this custom content, the MSP must create “Custom Sites” and subscribe only the specific customers BigFix Clients to that site. Create custom sites for each client and assign computers to them using the following example:

Also note that by default, the BigFix Operator accounts you create for each customer cid will have no access to the IBM External sites, such as Patches for Windows, Asset Discovery, Inventory & License, etc, so you will need to give “Reader” access for any of these sites that are required by these customer specific BigFix Console Operator accounts.

Running Actions to remote endpointsWith the above BigFix architecture in place, the administrator can deploy a patch to a remote endpoint and see it’s progress in realtime. Here is a short five minute video showing a small Microsoft hotfix being applied to a remote server. Remember that this server is isolated at the remote clients network, and has no direct communication to the Internet or central MSP BigFix server. All communication is performed via the BigFix relays.

You can see how BigFix provides a flexible multi-tenant service for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) without complex networking or server requirements.

It was recently reported that a Microsoft Windows and Office vulnerability was already being targeted by criminals. If you search on Google for keywords such a Windows and zero day exploit, it’s interesting to summarise the respective web pages mentions:

Windows – Approximately 7 Million web pages

Mac – Approximately 500K web pages

Linux – Approximately 500K web pages

IBM’s X-Force team publish all new threats via their X-Force Alerts and you’ll see the usual suspects. As outlined in this CRN Article, IBM’s X-Force Team advised that attackers “use a path of least resistance to gain a maximum return on exploits”.

It’s one thing to be notified of these threats, but how do you confidently address them easily within your organisation? This is a particular challenge with thousands of PCs and Macs and a mobile workforce. Some of whom may be travelling for days and not regularly connecting to a corporate network.

The good news is, there are tools that can help. Within hours of vulnerability being identified, IBM’s BigFix team will package and re-test a published hotfix (or suggested alternative). For example for the Windows and Office vulnerability outlined above, this in in the form of a temporary hot fix. This is then published by IBM in the form of a Fixlet,making this critical fix immediately available for all IBM Endpoint Manager servers and their clients. Each IEM agent then reports to it’s vulnerability status back to the customers BigFix console, so you have a realtime view of the number of endpoints effected.

The BigFix administrator can “Action this Fixlet” (ie. go ahead and fix those PCs and Servers thanks!), which will dynamically download the hotfix and apply it to tens or hundreds of thousands of endpoints. The administrator can once again view in realtime the remediation status. So at anytime, the BigFix administrator report this information to their organisation or security auditors.

In addition to the range of operating system vulnerabilities/patches addressed by BigFix, the following is a list of applications managed by the IBM Content Delivery Team include the following (thanks to Peter Tuton for putting together this list):

IBM BigFix provides clients with the ability to manage hundreds of thousands of endpoints from a single console. These can be a range of operating system types such as Windows, Linux, Apple Mac OSX and Unix. Oh, don’t forget mobile devices too!

You can install your BigFix environment with an relay running in your DMZ, you can also manage your mobile workforce and public cloud resources too. A BigFix relay is simply any existing IEM agent thats been given a few more additional tasks. They provide bandwidth and server scaling benefits and a proxy between externally managed devices and your internal network.

Your public instances will typically be Windows or Linux operating systems running on your public cloud of choice such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Softlayer or Microsoft Azure.

Configuring the IEM Client for Public Internet InstancesEach operating system you wish to manage needs to have the BigFix agent installed. IBM offers a range of agents for Windows, Mac OSX, IBM AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. The BigFix agent when it’s started, will attempt to register itself back to your BigFix server. This will be via details stored within the actionsite.afxm (renamed from the masthead.afxm file). This file is unique to your IEM server and is stored on your IEM server in the Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Installers\Client directory.

Of course, if you have a public cloud instance the BigFx client won’t be able to reach your privately hosted BigFix server. You need to provide the client a few additional details so it can ‘phone home’. This will be your relay in the DMZ and it’s DNS name or IP address. These details are stored in the clientsettings.cfg file. The following article provides details on how to configure this, but all it requires is just one or two lines as shown in this example:

Of course, use your DNS server names. The clientsettings.cfg file is used when the BigFix client is installed.

Deploying your IEM ClientsYou may wish to deploy your BigFix clients using the client deployment tool, Active Directory or login script as I detailed here. However for a public cloud environment, some platforms provide image deployment capabilities. Much like VMware’s powerful image template feature, with your cloud provider you will create a ‘gold image’ with your desired operating system, fixes, software and IEM agent installed. You need to follow the instructions in this article so the IEM agent ready to work correctly as new instances are deployed from this image.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)With AWS, you can create your gold image by creating an instance, shutting it down and selecting Actions – Create Image. You then have an AMI from which you can deploy new Instances as shown below. AWS provide the EC2Config service to also provide Sysprep and other image configuration features.

SoftlayerWith Softlayer, you can use the same approach with their Flex Image. Softlayer also provide the ability to execute a script which will be executed on a newly provisioned SoftLayer device, which is another approach to configure client settings if required.

Console ManagementWhen your instances start for the first time, they will automatically register to the BigFix server and be visible in the console. You’ll then be able to provide the following services from your console. This is possible for your private AND public instances !

Patch Management – Operating System Patches, plus a number of 3rd party applications such as Java, Adobe etc.

If you have BigFix baselines enabled, you can then be assured that those endpoints are automatically patched to a minimum level and an appropriate security posture is applied. IBM BigFix provides per server licensing, so you pay as those instances need to be managed. It would be great to hear from you if you’re managing Windows or Linux instances on AWS or Softlayer.

IBM Endpoint Manager was recently recognised in the Leaders quadrant in Gartner’s 2013 Client Management Tools. This is a great endorsement of IEM which excels in patch management, multiplatform support and scalability.

Gartner defines Client Management Tools as:

“End-user computing and support organizations use client management tools to automate system administration and support functions that would otherwise be handled manually. They are configuration management tools that image client systems, track inventory, deploy configuration changes (such as software or patches), enforce configuration standards and assist with troubleshooting. Windows PCs are the primary target of management, but organizations are looking to extend these products to manage Macs, mobile devices and servers as well. Mobile device management (MDM) is still a separate market, but organizations are increasingly looking to use a single vendor and management platform to support their PCs, Macs and mobile devices.”

Hey, what a great endorsement of IEM’s capabilities… to manage your PCs, Macs AND mobile devices, from a single management platform.

Select Manage Sites, IBM Software Inventory. Under the Computer Subscriptions tab, change the value from No computers to All computers and select Save Changes

Select System Lifecycle – Server Setup and Software Use Analytics. I don’t see any issue with installing the Software Knowledge Base Toolkit (SwKBT) first, however I chose to install SUA 2.0 first. I’ll talk more about the SwKBT below.

From the SUA install screen you’ll want to choose a server which will run SUA. For small environments, SUA could run on the same server as IEM. However as you grow beyond several thousand endpoints, you’ll want to dedicate a separate server for SUA 2.0. In my lab environment, I chose a separate Windows Server 2008 R2 VM for SUA 2.0 as shown below. Select that server and click Deploy

SUA 2.0 will then show you the following screen as it downloads the SUA 2.0 software and then mirrors it to that server. In my lab environment this took about 10 minutes. You can check the progress of the download by looking at the running Actions too:

On the SUA 2.0 server (my server was called IEM9TSUA2) I ran the installer and completed the install. I left SUA 2.0 running on port 80 in my environment (you could choose another port if required)

A web browser is then launched to complete the SUA 2.0 configuration. It asks you the location of your database (in my case I had setup a separate SUA 2.0 database on a remote Windows SQL 2008 server). I also didn’t worry about migrating my SUA 1.3 information over to SUA 2.0:

The SUA 2.0 application was then launched:

Back in the IEM console I could click Finish and configure it with the URL of my IEM9TSUA2 server as shown)

Now SUA 2.0 is up and running, we’ll now need to install the SwKBT and setup the endpoints for SUA scanning too.

Install and Configure the Software Knowledge Base Toolkit (SwKBT)

The Software Knowledge Base Toolkit (or SwKBT) is a new component of IEM SUA. Think of it as the catalog management service. It requires you to install a separate component, but I’d expect over time this probably won’t be required. In most environments, the SwKBT could easily run alongside SUA 2.0 on the same server. It’s used infrequently – for example as you load in new catalogs or update entries in the catalogs. In my lab environment, I installed the SwKBT on the same VM as SUA.

From the SUA install screen you’ll want to choose a server which will run SwKBT. Select that server and click Deploy Installer. As you see below, the size of the SwKBT is around 650MB so it took well over an hour to download and get mirrored to my SUA2.0 server.

From the IEM console, select System Lifecycle. Then select IBM Software Inventory, select Setup – Activate Analysis. You should see four Analysis as shown in the example below. Activate each of these.

Next select Manage Deployments – Manage Endpoints – Deploy and select Install Scanner, select Take Action. The scanner will then be deployed to the endpoint. Repeat the process for the Install Common Inventory Technology Scanner. Why are there two scanners? See here for further information.

Once the scanner and CIT scanner are deployed to each endpoint, you can then configure the two scanners to run periodically (by default it runs once per week). Select Manage Endpoints – Scan/Upload (note it can take a few minutes before the scanner you’ve deployed is relevant to this Fixlet. I found this was slower for the CIT scanner in my test lab).

Note: It’s probably a good idea to do each of the three items above on a group basis, so that as you deploy additional endpoints they’ll automatically be setup for SUA processing.

Software Catalog Update

You’ll want to use the latest software catalog from IBM, which we see has been automatically detected within the console. You’ll need to perform a similar task roughly every month as IBM releases new SUA catalogs. The update process is documented within the Fixlet, so check there on what you need to do, especially if you customise the catalog.

Click Upload. Then select Import Now within the SUA console (otherwise it will happen automatically at midnight)

Within SUA console, you’ll also need to click on this option to import a Fixlet into the IEM console. This Fixlet is linked to the catalog and will send a small catalog to each endpoint for processing. I found this a little cumbersome, but expect this process will also be simplified in the future. I edited the Fixlet and added – April 2013 at the end (see below) so I knew in the future this Fixlet was for the April catalog.

Click OK then select Take Action to target this CIT catalog download task to your applicable workstations (or group as suggested above)

SUA 2.0 is now available

When you log back into the SUA server you won’t immediately see any software usage information until the clients have sent their data to the server AND the data import task has run (which you’ll remember was once a day). You can run the data import process immediately if you want to see information like the following:

That’s it. SUA is now up and running and you can easily see what software is installed and being utilised in your company. If you’re familiar with SUA 1.3, I found the following Getting Started with Software Use Analysis 2.0 guide useful in adjusting to the console changes in 2.0. If you have any problems, please post your query to the IEM SUA forum.

Are you benefiting from IBM Endpoint Manager SUA? If so we’d love to hear from you.

IBM Endpoint Manager Software Usage Analysis (otherwise known as IEM SUA) allows you to easily determine what software is deployed across your organisation and how actively it is being used on each computer. With SUA you can easily determine whether you’re effectively using more expensive software such as Microsoft Project or Visio on all of your computers. IEM SUA is not only useful to improve the efficiency of your software but also substantially reduce the amount of work required for software compliance audits.

In the following article, I’ll step you through the installation of SUA 1.3.

Run the SUA installer exe. Select Next, Accept the licensing terms and click Next

Select the SUA folder installation and click Next, click Install

Once the install is completed click Finish

Once SUA has been installed, the configuration wizard will automatically after after a few seconds. Click Next

I’ve included a number of screen captures for configuring SUA during the install below. I used NT authentication, however you may wish to use SQL authentication.

Note: Notice how I changed the default port for SUA from port 80 to 81 below (so I didn’t have a clash with Web Reports). I also used a local account for my test server (which already exists). You’ll most likely have your SUA server a member of a Windows domain, in which you may want to use an authorised service account.

Progress for the SUA installation is shown below:

Once the install is completed click OK and then click Finish

When I’ve installed SUA, I’ve sometimes been prompted with the following error installing SUA “Execution of user code in the .NET Framework is disabled. Enable “clr enabled” configuration option”. This requires running this command on the SQL Management Studio before I configure SUA and then restarting the server.You can download the SQL Management Studio from here if applicable – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8961.

Run your web browser and browse to http://localhost:81 (port 81 if applicable). Enter the SUA administrator and password as shown:

Configure the datasource as shown below:

Next select create a new Datasource. Enter details as shown below, along with an EXE scan location of C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\UploadManagerData\BufferDir\sha1 (change to another drive letter if appropriate)Select Test and one confirmed ok, select Save

We’ll also schedule how often we want SUA 1.3 to import the data uploaded to the server from the clients. To do this, select Import options and enter the following details to run the import once per day. Select Save.

You will now have SUA installed, so we’ll now go to the IEM console and configure the clients which will send software usage information to the SUA server.

Select Manage Sites, Tivoli Endpoint Manager for Software Usage Analysis. Under the Computer Subscriptions tab, change the value from No computers to All computers and select Save Changes

Select System Lifecycle. Then select Setup – Activate Analysis. You should see three Analysis as shown in the example below. Activate each of these.

Next select Setup – Deploy Scanner to Endpoints and select Install Scanner, select Take Action. The scanner will then be deployed to the endpoint.

Once the scanner is deployed to each endpoint, you can then configure the scanner to run periodically (by default it runs once per week). Select Setup – Schedule Scan on Endpoints (note it can take a few minutes before the scanner you’ve deployed is relevant to this Fixlet). If you review the Execution tab, you can see the scanner will run by default every 7 days.

Note: It’s probably a good idea to do each of the three items above on a group basis, so that as you deploy additional endpoints they’ll automatically be setup for SUA processing.

There is a nice SUA health dashboard as shown below:

If relevant, new software catalog updates will be shown here along with instructions to download and install these on your SUA server.

Note: When you log back into the SUA server you won’t immediately see any software usage information until the clients have sent their data to the server AND the data import task has run (which you’ll remember we set on a once a day basis). You can run the data import process immediately if you want to see information like the following:

That’s it. SUA is now up and running and you can easily see what software is installed and being utilised in your company. It’s worthwhile watching the following video which gives an overview of the SUA 1.3 console. If you have any problems, please post your query to the IEM SUA forum.

Are you benefiting from IBM Endpoint Manager SUA? If so we’d love to hear from you.